Corruption in Science Media Articles
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on science corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
Inside the high-security Influenza Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two experienced scientists were pulling ferrets out of their HEPA-filtered cages on a Monday in December 2019. Another researcher, still in training, was also in the room to watch and learn. This particular experiment involved exposing the animals to a highly controversial lab-engineered strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus. Scientists had taken an avian influenza virus that was mostly dangerous to birds and manipulated it in ways that potentially increased its threat to humans. The research was supported [by] Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. On that December day, two experienced researchers from Kawaoka’s team were helping train a colleague as they collected samples from ferrets. One of their most important pieces of personal protective equipment was the air-purifying respirator that each wore. As one of the senior researchers prepared to start collecting samples from the next round of ferrets, the trainee realized there was a problem with their respirator. The powered air-purifying respirator (PAPR) hose had somehow disconnected from the unit. The detached hose dangled loose in the lab’s potentially contaminated air. In the end, the trainee apparently didn’t become infected. But how the university and the lab oversight system handled the incident should be cause for concern.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption from reliable major media sources.
Trust in public health has been shattered—half of America has lost faith in the scientific community altogether. Our current government is doubling down on World Health Organization (WHO) decrees that directly circumvent public oversight. The WHO has drafted a new global Pandemic Accord. The U.S. ambassador to the WHO, Pamela Hamamoto, on February 27 imprudently promised "The United States is committed to the Pandemic Accord." This comes immediately after the exposure of yet another disgrace undermining trust in public health institutions. It turned out the February 2020 Lancet article calling the lab origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus a "conspiracy theory" was itself the true conspiracy, contrived behind closed doors contemporaneously with a March 2020 publication in Nature. If that coordinated media campaign was designed to conceal malfeasance by Drs. Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci—who, as leaders of America's National Institutes of Health, reportedly sent American tax dollars to fund China's dangerous gain-of-function research and circumvent Obama administration-introduced restrictions—we may be witnessing the deadliest cover-up scandal in history. News media are also beginning to acknowledge facts that refute the original reasons behind lockdowns. Despite protestations to the contrary, all signers of the Pandemic Accord clearly relinquish critical autonomy to the WHO. Most ominous is that WHO defines "public health emergency" on its own terms.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The Lancet medical journal this month published a review of 65 studies that concluded prior infection with Covid—i.e., natural immunity—is at least as protective as two doses of mRNA vaccines. “Immunity acquired from a Covid infection is as protective as vaccination against severe illness and death, study finds,” NBC reported on Feb. 16. The study found that prior infection offered 78.6% protection against reinfection from the original Wuhan, Alpha or Delta variants at 40 weeks, which slipped to 36.1% against Omicron. Protection against severe illness remained around 90% across all variants after 40 weeks. These results exceed what other studies have found for two and even three mRNA doses. This comes after nearly three years of public-health officials’ dismissing the same hypothesis. But now that experts at the University of Washington have confirmed it in a leading—and left-leaning—journal, it’s fit to print. The Lancet study’s vindication of natural immunity fits a pandemic pattern: The public-health clerisy rejects an argument that ostensibly threatens its authority; eventually it’s forced to soften its position in the face of incontrovertible evidence; and yet not once does it acknowledge its opponents were right. The concept of natural immunity isn’t scientifically controversial, yet it was disparaged by public-health officials who associated it with opposition to lockdowns and the Great Barrington Declaration in autumn 2020.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption and coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Some believe the novel coronavirus probably escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. Others maintain the virus first jumped to people from caged animals at a Wuhan seafood market. Testing either hypothesis would require access to Wuhan lab records, biological samples, and personnel as well as frozen blood samples collected in 2019 by various Wuhan blood banks. The malfeasance of China’s rulers is the primary reason the international community doesn’t have access to these resources and data. But China hasn’t been the only problem. In the early days of the pandemic, a small group of Western virologists came together to consider the pandemic’s origin. Emails that eventually came to light revealed their plan to push the public conversation away from the lab-accident hypothesis and toward the natural-origins explanation. In a now infamous February 2020 letter in the Lancet, and in an equally problematic letter in Nature Medicine the next month, some of these scientists labeled any questions about a possible lab origin as “conspiracy theories.” Some of the same scientists had worked together, along with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, on a 2018 proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Their project? Genetically engineering rare gain-of-function features ... into SARS-like viruses. Scientists who had called the lab-leak hypothesis a conspiracy had failed to disclose that the lethal virus sweeping the world was eerily similar to the one they had wanted to create.
Note: A probing investigation of unredacted NIH emails further reveals how Anthony Fauci and other top scientists played an early role in shaping the debate about the origin of the virus, downplaying or dismissing any type of lab theory despite substantial evidence that favors the plausibility of a lab leak. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The origin of SARS-CoV-2, the agent that causes the disease COVID-19, remains a mystery. But there are purportedly a few high up in government and scientific communities well aware of its genesis. In “The Truth About Wuhan: How I Uncovered the Biggest Lie in History,” Andrew G. Huff, former EcoHealth Alliance vice president and senior scientist, details his coming forward “as a material witness and whistleblower related to SARS-CoV-2.” “The Truth About Wuhan” [contains] an insider’s view of working for EcoHealth Alliance; a damning critique of models and techniques used to hunt coronaviruses; a reasoned aversion to “gain of function” research; the real COVID-19 timeline; China and U.S. culpability in the virus mayhem; and the multifarious, direct attacks used by the federal government to harass and discredit Mr. Huff. According to the author, “SARS-CoV-2 leaked from the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] laboratory as early as August 2019. The probable cases detected in Italy in 2019 make sense as Italy is one of the most popular tourist destinations of the Chinese. By mid-October 2019 the disease was likely already on every continent except Antarctica. The DoD, along with militaries globally, detected the disease in their countries’ service members that attended the Military World Games in Wuhan. Trying to avoid global panic, governments began to implement response plans, which included the U.S. government’s mobilization of the mRNA SARS-CoV-2 gene therapy.”
Note: Before buying this book, you might read this review and the reviews on Amazon. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Last week, the report Merchants of Poison: How Monsanto Sold the World on a Toxic Pesticide was published by authors Stacy Malkan, Kendra Klein and Anna Lappé. [In 2012], pesticide and processed food companies spent $45 million to defeat a ballot initiative to label GMOs (genetically modified foods) in California. This campaign was led by Monsanto, one of the planet’s largest producers of GMOs. Monsanto created a PR storm through the mouths of so-called third-party “experts” from across the fields of academia and science. It was later revealed that these allegedly neutral voices were closely tied to Monsanto. The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015 concluded that glyphosate—the chemical contained within herbicides that most GMO crops have been engineered to resist—is likely a human carcinogen. Thousands sued Monsanto claiming that their exposure of Monsanto’s glyphosate-based product, Roundup, caused their cancers. Monsanto employees ghostwrote scientific papers on the safety of glyphosate and strategized how to discredit journalists and scientists raising concerns about the pesticide. Major universities, including University of California Davis and University of Florida, played a significant role in legitimizing and amplifying pesticide industry product-defense efforts. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cornell University, and the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) ... also provided essential aid and cover for pesticide industry propaganda.
Note: A 2019 study found that glyphosate increases cancer risk by 41%. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on GMOs and science corruption from reliable major media sources.
New scientific breakthroughs make it increasingly easy to identify dangerous viruses in nature, manipulate them in the lab and synthetically create them from genetic sequences. But some scientists have taken it further, adding “gain of function” mutations that make potential pandemic viruses more transmissible. The National Institutes of Health funded two research groups to increase the transmissibility of an earlier strain of avian influenza that had killed hundreds of people but could not efficiently spread from person to person. Both groups created viral mutants that could transmit in ferrets. The Obama administration was so alarmed that it halted gain-of-function work on potential pandemic influenza viruses in 2014, but the N.I.H. allowed it to restart by 2019. In my view, there is no justification for intentionally making potential pandemic viruses more transmissible. The consequences of an accident could be too horrific, and such engineered viruses are not needed for vaccines anyway. Natural viruses that haven’t yet infected humans can also pose a risk if researchers try to find the most dangerous ones and bring them back to the lab for experiments. Suspicions about a lab-accident origin of SARS-CoV-2 have been fueled by the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was involved in Chinese and international efforts to find and experiment with new high-risk coronaviruses. A final category of pandemic risk involves viruses that used to transmit in humans but became extinct long ago — like the 1918 influenza virus.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption and the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
The city of Philadelphia issued an apology Thursday for the unethical medical experiments performed on mostly Black inmates at its Holmesburg Prison from the 1950s through the 1970s. The move comes after community activists and families of some of those inmates raised the need for a formal apology. It also follows a string of apologies from various U.S. cities over historically racist policies or wrongdoing in the wake of the nationwide racial reckoning after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The city allowed University of Pennsylvania researcher Dr. Albert Kligman to conduct the dermatological, biochemical and pharmaceutical experiments that intentionally exposed about 300 inmates to viruses, fungus, asbestos and chemical agents including dioxin — a component of Agent Orange. The vast majority of Kligman's experiments were performed on Black men, many of whom were awaiting trial and trying to save money for bail, and many of whom were illiterate, the city said. Many of the former inmates would have lifelong scars and health issues from the experiments. A group of the inmates filed a lawsuit against the university and Kligman in 2000 that was ultimately thrown out because of a statute of limitations. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in the apology that the experiments exploited a vulnerable population and the impact of that medical racism has extended for generations. Last year, the University of Pennsylvania issued a formal apology.
Note: Read about the long and disturbing history of people being treated like guinea pigs in science experiments. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in science and in the prison system from reliable major media sources.
The Dallas-based biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences has a vision: “To see the Woolly Mammoth thunder upon the tundra once again.” Founders George Church and Ben Lamm have already racked up an impressive list of high-profile funders and investors, including Peter Thiel, Tony Robbins, Paris Hilton, Winklevoss Capital — and, according to the public portfolio its venture capital arm released this month, the CIA. Colossal says it hopes to use advanced genetic sequencing to resurrect two extinct mammals — not just the giant, ice age mammoth, but also a mid-sized marsupial known as the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, that died out less than a century ago. In-Q-Tel, its new investor, is registered as a nonprofit venture capital firm funded by the CIA. On its surface, the group funds technology startups with the potential to safeguard national security. In addition to its long-standing pursuit of intelligence and weapons technologies, the CIA outfit has lately displayed an increased interest in biotechnology and particularly DNA sequencing. “Biotechnology and the broader bioeconomy are critical for humanity to further develop. It is important for all facets of our government to develop them and have an understanding of what is possible,” Colossal co-founder Ben Lamm wrote. The embrace of this technology, according to In-Q-Tel’s blog post, will help allow U.S. government agencies to read, write, and edit genetic material, and, importantly, to steer global biological phenomena that impact “nation-to-nation competition.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
A group of whistleblowers has provided evidence that the Environmental Protection Agency has not adequately assessed the health risks posed by several new chemicals on the grounds that they are corrosive. Those harms include cancer, miscarriage, and neurotoxicity, according to the whistleblowers, who work as health assessors in the division. In some cases … the risks were calculated, found to be significant, and later deleted from official documents. In March 2020, Gallagher, the human health assessor, found that another chemical presented risks to workers. Information [about the hazards] was included in a version of the assessment. But a month later, a manager in the New Chemicals Division created a new assessment [that] explained: "Risks were not evaluated for workers via repeated dermal exposures because dermal exposures are not considered likely due to the corrosivity of the new chemical substance." According to the whistleblowers, this statement is false. "It is intentionally misleading for EPA to put into a report that we did not calculate risk when we did," said Martin Phillips, a chemist and human health assessor who works in the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. "It's lying about what we did. It's not just that we did the calculations. We did the calculations and found risks, and then they got rid of them and said that we didn't calculate them. It's fundamentally inaccurate."
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Why have so many smart, well-trained doctors stood by as American healthcare descended into a state of profound dysfunction? The answer lies in the gradual, nearly invisible commercial takeover of the medical “knowledge” that doctors are trained to trust. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan slashed government support of university-based medical research. Following the 1980 passage of the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act, nonprofit institutions and their researchers were allowed to benefit financially from the discoveries made while conducting federally funded research. Over the past few decades, the drug companies have taken over most of our clinical research. In 1991, academic medical centers (AMCs)—hospitals that train doctors and conduct medical research—received 80 percent of the money that industry was spending to fund clinical trials. But by 2004, the percentage of commercially funded clinical trials conducted by AMCs had fallen from 80 to just 26 percent. That ... allowed the commercial funder to own, and thus control, the data from jointly conducted research. Unbeknownst to almost all doctors, peer reviewers are not granted access to the underlying data that serves as the basis for the reported findings. The drug companies own that data and keep it confidential. Reviewers must rely on brief data summaries. Peer reviewers at even the most prestigious medical journals cannot possibly attest to the accuracy and completeness of the articles they review.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in science and Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.
In the pages of The BMJ a decade ago, in the middle of a different pandemic, it came to light that governments around the world had spent billions stockpiling antivirals for influenza that had not been shown to reduce the risk of complications, hospital admissions, or death. The errors of the last pandemic are being repeated. Memories are short. Today, despite the global rollout of covid-19 vaccines and treatments, [the] data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public—and are likely to remain that way for years to come. This is morally indefensible for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health interventions. Pfizer’s pivotal covid vaccine trial was funded by the company and designed, run, analysed, and authored by Pfizer employees. The company and the contract research organisations that carried out the trial hold all the data. And Pfizer has indicated that it will not begin entertaining requests for trial data until May 2025, 24 months after the primary study completion date. The lack of access to data is consistent across vaccine manufacturers. Regulators and public health bodies could release details such as why vaccine trials were not designed to test efficacy against infection and spread of SARS-CoV-2. Had regulators insisted on this outcome, countries would have learnt sooner about the effect of vaccines on transmission and been able to plan accordingly.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Arpad Pusztai spoke for only two and a half minutes during his interview for ITN's World in Action in 1998, but it was enough to end his career. The Hungarian-born expert in lectins, a type of protein, had spent decades working at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen and had almost 300 scientific papers and three books to his name. In the mid-1990s, with big food manufacturers increasingly developing and promoting genetically modified crops, he had been asked to investigate the effect that their products, specifically GM potatoes, could have on rats. His data showed that those being fed GM potatoes experienced stunted organ and brain growth and disturbance to their immune systems. Pusztai ... agreed to discuss his research on television in the hope of attracting new funding. His comments, which were promoted by the programme in a press release headed "new health fears over 'Frankenstein' food", started a media frenzy. Pusztai was suspended and his raw data was seized. According to [author Andrew] Rowell: "All GM work was stopped immediately and Pusztai's team was dispersed. His three PhD students were moved to other areas. He was threatened with legal action if he spoke to anyone. His phone calls and emails were diverted. No one was allowed to speak to him either." In Pusztai's telling ... the Rowett Institute came under pressure from senior figures in the government and the food industry. Two employees told him that the institute had taken calls from the office of Tony Blair, the prime minister.
Note: Read more about this important scientist. And for more on the dangers of GM food, see this important book summary. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and GMOs from reliable major media sources.
The work of a task force commissioned by the Lancet into the origins of covid-19 has folded after concerns about the conflicts of interest of one its members and his ties through a non-profit organisation to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Task force chair Jeffrey Sachs ... told the Wall Street Journal that he had shut down the scientist led investigation into how the covid-19 pandemic started because of concerns about its links to the EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit organisation run by task force member Peter Daszak. The decision came as evidence continued to accumulate that Daszak had not always been forthright about his research and his financial ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. EcoHealth Alliance has been given millions of dollars in grants by the US federal government to research viruses for pandemic preparedness. The alliance has subcontracted out its research ... to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Shortly after the pandemic began Daszak led a February 2020 statement in the Lancet alleging that it was a “conspiracy theory” to argue that the pandemic could have started from a laboratory leak in Wuhan. “I have no conflicts of interest,” Daszak later told the Washington Post. But Daszak’s story began falling apart last November when the non-profit group US Right to Know published emails ... that showed he had orchestrated the Lancet statement without disclosing that he was funding Shi Zhengli through grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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A grant proposal written by the U.S.-based nonprofit the EcoHealth Alliance and submitted in 2018 to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, provides evidence that the group was working — or at least planning to work — on several risky areas of research. Among the scientific tasks the group described in its proposal, which was rejected by DARPA, was the creation of full-length infectious clones of bat SARS-related coronaviruses and the insertion of a tiny part of the virus known as a “proteolytic cleavage site” into bat coronaviruses. Of particular interest was a type of cleavage site able to interact with furin, an enzyme expressed in human cells. Since the genetic code of the coronavirus that caused the pandemic was first sequenced, scientists have puzzled over the “furin cleavage site.” This strange feature on the spike protein of the virus had never been seen in SARS-related betacoronaviruses, the class to which SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes the respiratory illness Covid-19, belongs. The furin cleavage site enables the virus to more efficiently bind to and release its genetic material into a human cell and is one of the reasons that the virus is so easily transmissible and harmful. Many who believe that the virus that caused the pandemic emerged from a laboratory have pointed out that it is unlikely that the particular sequence of amino acids that make up the furin cleavage site would have occurred naturally.
Note: Read about the risky research on coronaviruses that took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Wuhan and US scientists were planning to release enhanced airborne coronavirus particles into Chinese bat populations to inoculate them against diseases that could jump to humans, leaked grant proposals dating from 2018 show. Just 18 months before the first Covid-19 cases appeared, researchers had submitted plans to release skin-penetrating nanoparticles and aerosols containing “novel chimeric spike proteins” of bat coronaviruses into cave bats in Yunnan, China. They also planned to create chimeric viruses, genetically enhanced to infect humans more easily, and requested $14million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) to fund the work. Papers, confirmed as genuine by a former member of the Trump administration, show they were hoping to introduce “human-specific cleavage sites” to bat coronaviruses which would make it easier for the virus to enter human cells. When Covid-19 was first genetically sequenced, scientists were puzzled about how the virus had evolved such a human-specific adaptation at the cleavage site on the spike protein, which is the reason it is so infectious. The documents were released by Drastic, the web-based investigations team set up by scientists from across the world to look into the origins of Covid-19. In a statement, Drastic said: “Given that we find in this proposal a discussion of the planned introduction of human-specific cleavage sites, a review by the wider scientific community of the plausibility of artificial insertion is warranted.”
Note: Read more about the risky research on coronaviruses that took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
On July 5, 2021, a Correspondence was published in The Lancet called “Science, not speculation, is essential to determine how SARS-CoV-2 reached humans”. The letter recapitulates the arguments of an earlier letter (published in February, 2020) by the same authors which claimed overwhelming support for the hypothesis that the novel coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic originated in wildlife. The authors associated any alternative view with conspiracy theories. There is so far no scientifically validated evidence that directly supports a natural origin. The fact that the causative agent of COVID-19 descends from a natural virus is widely accepted, but this does not explain how it came to infect humans. Neither the host pathway from bats to humans, nor the geographical route from Yunnan to Wuhan have been identified. More than 80,000 samples collected from Chinese wildlife sites and animal farms all proved negative. A research-related origin is plausible. Two questions need to be addressed: virus evolution and introduction into the human population. Since July, 2020, several peer-reviewed scientific papers have discussed the likelihood of a research-related origin of the virus. Some unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence suggest that they may have resulted from genetic engineering, an approach widely used in some virology labs. Laboratory research also includes more targeted approaches such as gain-of-function experiments relying on chimeric viruses to test their potential to cross species barriers.
Note: Why early in the pandemic did many scientists brand anyone who had evidence the virus was artificially created as a conspiracy theorist? Read about the risky research on coronaviruses that took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
More than half of Dutch scientists regularly engage in questionable research practices, such as hiding flaws in their research design or selectively citing literature, according to a new study. And one in 12 admitted to committing a more serious form of research misconduct within the past 3 years: the fabrication or falsification of research results. This rate of 8% for outright fraud was more than double that reported in previous studies. Organizers of the Dutch National Survey on Research Integrity, the largest of its kind to date, took special precautions to guarantee the anonymity of respondents for these sensitive questions, says Gowri Gopalakrishna, the survey’s leader and an epidemiologist at Amsterdam University Medical Center (AUMC). “That method increases the honesty of the answers,” she says. The survey found Ph.D. students had the hardest time meeting the standards of responsible research. Some 53% of them admitted to frequently engaging in one of the 11 questionable research behaviors within the past 3 years, compared to 49% of associate and full professors. To look for possible explanations of participants’ behavior, the study team also asked about their professional experiences—whether they felt workplace pressure or peer pressure, for instance. The team found that pressure to publish was most strongly correlated with questionable research behavior, and that perceptions of the chance of being caught by peer reviewers was the biggest factor in inhibiting misconduct.
Note: A former editor of The Lancet has suggested that up to half of all scientific literature may be untrue. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in science from reliable major media sources.
Dr Fauci has been the face of the nation's Covid-19 response. But emails have raised questions on whether he backed Chinese denials of the theory that Covid-19 leaked from a lab. A trove of Dr Fauci's emails covering the onset of the coronavirus outbreak were released this week to media under a freedom of information request. Chinese authorities linked early Covid-19 cases to a seafood market in Wuhan. But recent US media reports have suggested growing evidence the virus could instead have emerged from a lab in Wuhan, perhaps through an accidental leak. The NIH, which is a US public health agency, gave $600,000 (425,000) to the Wuhan Institute of Virology from 2014-19 via a grant to the New York-based non-profit group EcoHealth Alliance, for the purpose of researching bat coronaviruses. Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, emailed Dr Fauci in April 2020, praising him as "brave" for seeking to debunk the lab leak theory. Department of State officials ... were told not to explore claims about gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab to avoid attracting unwelcome attention to US government funding of such research. Gain-of-function studies involve altering pathogens to make them more transmissible in order to learn more about how they might mutate. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that three employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill and were admitted to hospital in November 2019, just before the first reported Covid-19 cases.
Note: Read lots more important information on this not covered in the BBC article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
A small group of scientists and others who believe the novel coronavirus that spawned the pandemic could have originated from a lab leak or accident is calling for an inquiry independent of the World Health Organization’s team of independent experts sent to China last month. Officials with the W.H.O. have said in recent interviews that it was “extremely unlikely” but not impossible that the spread of the virus was linked to some lab accident. The open letter ... lists what the signers see as flaws in the joint W.H.O.-China inquiry. The letter emphasized that the team was denied access to some records and did not investigate laboratories in China. Dr. David A. Relman, a professor of medicine and microbiology at Stanford University [said] "the W.H.O. investigation appears to be biased, skewed, and insufficient." Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and one of the scientists who signed the letter, said it grew out of a series of online discussions among scientists, policy experts and others who came to be known informally as the Paris group. Many of those who signed the letter were based in France and Dr. Ebright, who has been outspoken about the need to investigate a possible laboratory leak, said such discussion had been less vigorous in the United States. He said that no one in the group thought that the virus had been intentionally created as a weapon, but they were all convinced that an origin in a lab through research or by accidental infection was as likely as a spillover occurring in nature from animals to humans.
Note: Read more about the controversial "gain-of-function" research that took place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
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